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“It’s radiation sickness,” he said. “You’ve both been exposed. It’s… bad. God, I’m sorry, but I think it’s really bad.”
That was all Morgie could hear. It was all he could bear to hear. He stopped trying to speak. Stopped trying to reconnect. Instead, he let himself fall.
And fell for a long, long time.
He fell forever.
PART TWENTY-ONE THE FALL OF NEW ALAMO
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
—LUCIUS ANNAEUS SENECA
76
THE RAVAGERS WERE ON THE walls.
They left a trail of dead behind them. Bullets and arrows rained down on them as they rushed for the outer row of stacked cars. Then, as they clustered at the base, the stones began falling.
They fell. Two more. Five. Ten. Twenty.
But there were so many more, and with snarls of hunger and fury, they began to climb.
Far above them, Karen Peak leaned out, taking careful aim, and fired, fired, fired. She was a good shot, and even with smoke and noise and fear, she knocked a climber down with nearly every shot. Ravagers leaned into the wall to avoid the falling bodies, and then, like roaches, they kept coming.
God save us, Karen thought as she reloaded.
* * *
“They’re on the wall!” The cry rang out, louder than gunfire, louder than the moans of thousands of los muertos. It was Karen Peak’s voice, the words screamed out with such ferocity that Alethea could hear how it tore the lining of the woman’s throat. “They’re on the wall!”
A shocked moment passed, and then another voice repeated the cry.
And another.
Then ten more. A dozen.
“They’re on the wall!”
Some of the voices were filled with panic. Some with anger. Some of the defen
ders wept as they took up the cry. People down in the street began shouting too.
“They’re on the wall!”
Alethea yelled it too. She heard the same hopelessness in her voice that burned in every other voice.
And then a new and much more terrible cry rang out from behind her.
“They’re in the streets!”
She whirled and saw that somehow, impossibly, a mass of shamblers was lumbering through the streets. People scattered in blind panic, dropping the hastily packed bundles and suitcases, fleeing in all directions. No longer running toward carefully selected exit points. Within seconds the escape had become a rout.
Alethea turned and ran. What good was defending the wall if the enemy was already inside? She hustled to the ladder and climbed down as fast as she could. A shambler clamped cold fingers on her ankle when she was still five feet from the ground, but Alethea swung her bat one-handed and the creature fell away, its head shattered.
She reached the ground and heard high-pitched screams, turned, and in horror saw a group of children being cornered by the dead. Their parents were nowhere to be seen. With a growl, Alethea charged, swinging her bat in short, vicious, powerful arcs, hitting faces and chins and chests as the dead turned to meet her. The creatures fell like straw men in a hurricane blast. Some crawled at her, dragging broken bodies; others lay still, the last of their unnatural life crushed out of them.
She stood between them and the four kids. The whole neighborhood seemed to be falling to pieces. Alice Chung’s house was only two blocks over, but Alethea knew she couldn’t get there. Gutsy and Alice would have to defend themselves. Gutsy could, Alethea knew; but as much as she liked Alice, the girl wasn’t strong in the same way. Alice’s strength was her kindness and her compassion. She wasn’t a natural fighter. Alethea didn’t think Alice could go on fighting without it eroding her.
